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Aunt Sue’s surprise

Here's Aunt Sue, holding up her new cardigan. On her right (our left) is her grandson, Andrew, and on her right, in the red jacket, is Todd's sister, Gigi. On the other side of Andrew are his sisters, Katie and Tori.

Yesterday was a long one, but it was worth it. Aunt Sue had a great time.

Anton and I left early at my insistance. We sailed over the Outer Bridge Crossing, across Staten Island into Brooklyn in less than an hour and had a pleasant but short visit with my son, Alex, at his new apartment in Brooklyn. It’s cozy but nice and, I hate to admit it, cleaner than my house. So it was everything a mother wants to see, and it made my heart proud.

Then we got on the Belt Parkway instead of the BQE and thereby avoided the Long Island Expressway, which was stressing me out. The Belt was much less crowded, and we had an uneventful drive to the Cross Island Expressway, which we took north to Jamaica Ave/Jerico Turnpike. We drove that about 4 miles to Mineola and found the restaurant about an hour before we needed to be there. So we went to a diner for coffee and hot chocolate. He ate an egg sandwich, I had a bagel and then knitted until it was time to go.

The restaurant was quite nice, one of those fancy Italian restaurants that my family favors for reunions. I was the second one there (Anton was outside talking to his girlfriend) and before long, my Uncle Rocky, the last surviving brother of my Dad’s, arrived with his son, my cousin, Rocky Jr. Uncle Rocky is a retired Air Force General, and we’re all very proud of him. Of all the 4 brothers, Rocky looked more like my dad than any of the others, so seeing him always brings back a lot of memories. He’s also 80 and traveled here from Ohio for the event.

Later, my cousin Doug, who is the vice president in charge of real estate at CVS, came with his wife, Breda, and their triplets. And I’m leaving out most of the crowd that also showed up: all Sue’s friends from her co-op building, the women she worked with at Queen’s College, the relatives from her side of the family (I’m on her late husband’s side–he was my dad’s brother, Mike) and finally, after quite a long wait, Sue arrived with Dottie (her daughter), Todd, Dottie’s husband, and Gigi, Todd’s sister. Sue was shocked.

The dinner was great, we were there about 4 hours. Sue wasn’t planning to open the gifts, but I told Dottie that all of you wanted to see Sue open the sweater, so they agreed she could open that one present. As she was doing it, her cousin Peter had to come over and interrupt with some reminiscences that he shared with the whole party. Then his brother-in-law, Nick, had to do the same, and not to be outdone, he probably gave us more information that we wanted, but it was pretty funny. And finally, she got back to opening the sweater, but it was almost anticlimactic.

Of course, the photo of her actually unwrapping the tissue around the sweater was blurred, so I deleted it, but I’ve posted a photo of her holding the sweater up for others to see. She really did like it, although she didn’t try it on. I hope it fits. She said she’d let me know.

About the author

Pam MacKenzie
Our real estate editor, Pam MacKenzie, expresses her creative side in this blog about knitting. Pam learned to knit at age 6, when her friend’s mother made Pam’s doll a dress, and Pam wanted to make more. Her mother wanted her to learn how to sew in high school, but she was afraid of the sewing machines, cutting fabric the wrong way, and the potential that sewing would have for bringing down her grade-point average. Every year, she managed to find a course conflict to avoid sewing classes. But the day after high school graduation, she took her graduation money to a fabric store, bought a kit to make a sweater, taught herself to read patterns and never looked back. These days, she knits a prayer shawl every month, along with sweaters, tote bags, gift bags and other goodies. She also designs many of her projects. Read More About PamE-mail Pam